Unconditional
by pillsandchills
Summary: Root's POV of falling in love with Shaw. Set in the Barely Human universe. While you don't have to read Barely Human, this story would make more sense if you did.


Every second you spent with her you became more and more enamoured, and really there was only one problem: she was sixteen. Now you're a lot of things, a little bit crazy, a lot bit sadistic, reckless, fearless, perverted, devoted to the machine, but you're definitely not into kids. So whatever sort of in love you were feeling, you stuffed down inside of you and instead devoted every bit of energy you had into just plain loving her. Sure Harry worried that you were spoiling her, but seeing her feel more comfortable around you (or at least you assumed she was, she didn't seem to emote very much) was worth it, plus you didn't care what he thought anyways. So you kept spoiling her, and it's not like she was turning into some horrible kid anyways, all she really wanted was a bike and medical textbooks, which were easy enough to procure.

It was so easy to love Sam because she was (and is) absolutely extraordinary, especially her mind. She devoured any sort of scholarly knowledge, and remembered every single thing she read or heard. She had a knack for languages, and numbers, and you're still not really sure if there's anything that she's actually bad at. Right from the beginning you learned that she was extremely tactile, but it was very clear that her CIA stint had taught her that touch was bad. You tried your hardest to convey that she was safe with you, and she was in charge when it came to your relationship, but a horrible twisty feeling would still constantly bubble up inside every time she touched you. It was difficult to separate your wanting love from your unconditional love, even if the latter was so much stronger.

Around her seventeenth birthday something inside you changed, you physically felt it, because all of a sudden you knew that the machine was no longer the only thing you would die for. It terrified you right down to your core; you had never felt this way about a person before, and deep inside you knew that it was so wrong. She was sleeping in your lap while you were coding, and right before you woke her up to tell her to go to bed, you just looked down at her. She was so quiet, and so small, and you remembered for once that she was still so young. Her life had been so fucked, in a different but similar way than your childhood was, and all you wanted to do was hold her closer and try and erase all of that. You wrapped your arms around her and pulled her in tighter for just a second; she let out a sigh as her muscles became less tense and she burrowed into your chest just a bit more. You wanted to stay like that forever, just you and her and the safety of your apartment. But that couldn't happen for so many reasons, like the world ending and the code you needed to finish and Harry constantly glaring at you every time you were within two feet of Sam. So instead you kissed the back of her head and she jolted up and glared at you and disorientatedly made her way to the bedroom while you stayed up to code all night.

As Sam continued to grow, so did your love for her. You had always thought that there was a capacity for the amount you could love someone, but Sam disproved that every single day. She also managed to get more and more beautiful every day, and the guilt you felt for even noticing ate away at you. It was wrong, and you repeated that to yourself every time a thought came up, you were constantly berating yourself, and hardly ever sleeping. And then to top it off, she got shot while you were away. Aside from ruining your shoes with your vomit, you also felt your insides shatter into six million pieces that day. The plane couldn't get to New York fast enough, and while you were laying in bed with her that night, you didn't know if you were ever going to be able to let her go. That night changed you, because you just let all your guilt go. You didn't want to waste time with Sam, you wanted every moment you could have with her, and the hole left by all the guilt you felt was rapidly replaced with even more unconditional love that no longer went to waste by you not telling her you loved her.

You blinked and Sam was nineteen. An adult, who was really good at her job, and who was completely independent (she always had been though) but so fiercely protective of you. Harry disapproved, but then again, he always did when you were involved. When she killed the man who cut your face with her bare hands (no one ever told her he died) Harry pulled you into his office and glared at you for an hour as he lectured you on having "raised" Sam improperly. You winced at the word, because while you had sort of raised her, she was also basically a functional adult when you met her, you just had given her a safe environment to grow in. You pushed away the thought, because you weren't going to feel guilty about being in love with Sam anymore. You would never act on it (except for that one time where she choked you until you came but that was just a physiological response), she was always in control. She loved you too, she told you, maybe not in the same way, but it was more than enough for you.

Sam was going to become a doctor, everything was going well, until it wasn't. Until Samaritan. Until you sedated Sam so she didn't do something stupid and John punched you in the face so you didn't do something stupid and then he did something stupid. He was gone. And you got him back but he was so different. Sameen looked up to him so much and was equally as devastated to meet the new broken version of him as she was when he was taken, and she was still so furious with you. But then you pulled her move, and got yourself shot (except it was way worse), and you thought you lost her. Suddenly she was sixteen again, but a complete shell of her sixteen year old self. She clung to you every second of every day, she actually needed you, in fact, she was completely dependent on you. And for the first, and only, time of your life, you fell completely out of love with her. You still loved her more than anything in this whole world, probably even more than the Machine, but as she buried herself in your chest every night while she slept, you did your best not to sob. Sam had been afraid, and for once was actually responding like someone as young as she was. In turn, you pulled her in closer and told her you loved her twice as much, and gave her every ounce of everything you had in you.

Coaching Sam back to health was the hardest thing you'd ever done, which really is saying a lot because you've been through some shit. But she got through it, and came out as strong as ever. She was amazing at school, and your heart swelled with pride every time she came home whether it be from a mission or just another day at school. Falling in love with her again hit you as hard as the first time, but it was so much easier this time. It hurt you less, you felt less guilt and less pain, and if there was one thing Sam knew it was that she was in charge of your relationship. On her twenty first birthday, she finally took control, and kissed you senseless. You thought it would change everything, that you would feel your entire life suddenly become worth the hell you had been through, but it was different. You realized it wasn't that you suddenly felt this way, but that you had felt this way since you met Sameen. If she had never kissed you, it would still have been enough, because getting to feel the unconditional love that Sam brought out in you made life worth living. After all, you loved Sameen Shaw the minute you met her.


End file.
